1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to digital time displays and, more particularly, to displays which are unified and structured to occupy expanded fields which provides advantages when used as such or in combination with other displays having similar characteristics.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional digital time displays generally consist of hour, minutes and sometimes seconds digits aligned horizontally across a display field in that order. Other information such as a day name and/or calendar dates are frequently included, above or sometimes below the time digits. In virtually all cases, the time and calendar values occupy substantially the entire background or field containing such information.
There are other kinds of prior art digital time displays characterized as quadribalanced, enhanced quadribalanced and unidirectional segmented displays, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,497, U.S. Pat. No. 6,214,736 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,041, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein. In those displays, the time digits are not confined to a single horizontal array. Instead, the hour digit is positioned in the center of the display field, the minute digits move in right side up/down and left side down/up positions, generally in quarter hour segments, and the seconds digits are located below the hour digit, while incrementing and decrementing during the first and second half hours. As a result, these unconventional displays are presented in relatively larger display fields, much of which do not contain time information during any given quarter hour.
Due to the foregoing, there is a noticeable contrast between the appearances of the two types of displays. In addition, there is no analogous form of time presentation in the latter type compared to the conventional displays, with which consumers have become accustomed to viewing time digits that remain in non-mobile, stationary positions during each hour.
The above-mentioned contrasting visual appearances and the absence of a stationary style of time presentation render the unconventional prior art displays less efficient and versatile than would be attainable if such deficiencies were avoided.